Meet here at 8:00 ET tomorrow 3/6/19 (6/3/19) to discuss The Creature from the Black Lagoon’s grandfather.
"Dagon" by H. P. Lovecraft
Fishy fishy
"Dagon" by H. P. Lovecraft
Fishy fishy
Discussion Group for March 6th — Dagon by H.P. Lovecraft
- Thread starter Wayoftheredpanda
- Start date
-
This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.
On it! I don't think I've ever read Lovecraft - horror is not my thing. 
....my schedule is always uncertain on Wednesday, so allow me to comment a bit early....this is not Lovecraft at his best....I have been a fan for years and knew the tale long ago....time hasn't changed my mind.....he crammed every overly descriptive wording and phrase into this and flung it at our imagination and hoped it would stick....his tropes were poorly handled.....his leviathan cosmology and those "from outside space" were given much better treatment in other stories....Panda?....I'm not pooping on your suggestion, just saying that this black slime could have been smeared better elsewhere by Howard Phillips....the maestro of dark atmosphere missed the mark on this one....
....H.P. Lovecat......
....H.P. Lovecat......
Tbf, I’m pretty sure this is only his second published story. Speaking of Lovecats, here’s a picture of Mr. Lovecraft and his cat, who’s name you can look up for yourself because I sure as hell am not saying it here.
Let’s call him Nyarlathotep instead, it starts with the same letter and is a character with a much more family-friendly name.
H.P. Lovecraft couldn't handle temperature under 25 degrees Celsius.(77 F). I'll try to participate in this but because of the time difference I might have to post later. I read that in a article by (I think) L. Sprague de Camp, in an Argosy magazine.
Good morning friends! I have a thing I have to do this evening from 5:30-8pm - not the usual scullery duties, so it will be late but I haven't forgotten. I shall return.
Ok -nevermind that - I took a moment at work to read the story when I saw how short it was.
( I'm in my cozy office, listening to Vince Guaraldi on Spotify, while the speaker in the main office is broadcasting the action in the sanctuary : our priest saying our first Ash Wednesday Mass of the day - talk about a clash of all the things!)
Being my first HP Lovecraft read - I'm sufficiently blown away. Not so much by the story itself - but by the visuals. The story follows a certain pleasant and familiar beat - is it madness spawned by a glimpse into something real and horrifying? OR was it hallucinations triggered by trauma, starvation, thirst, exhaustion? It doesn't really matter in the end. (His journey also reminded me of Roland in Drawing of the Three - I think for me, all things lead to the Dark Tower)
It felt a little Clive Barker-ish to me - which is to say - Barker must be a fan. And it made me think of some of our beloved SK stories: Survivor Type and The Raft and just a little bit of Mrs. Todd's Shortcut and The Mist and Langoliers) the feeling Lovecraft invoked in me was similar to those stories, and the grotesque imagery was what made me think of Barker - his scenery is always so sickening to me. The mention of Poe excited me - what it must have been like to exist in those days - when Poe was so relatively recent. I have to say - I liked it very much. Leaves me wanting more. I understand they hype of Lovecraft now.
Oh - Atlantis! It also made me think of the legend of Atlantis for some reason - maybe a discovery of Atlantis gone awry - that's what it felt like.
Thanks again for the new author in my life. Someone told me not to read Lovecraft because I'm such a chicken. That wasn't so bad. I'll be back for more.
Y'all have a great day!
( I'm in my cozy office, listening to Vince Guaraldi on Spotify, while the speaker in the main office is broadcasting the action in the sanctuary : our priest saying our first Ash Wednesday Mass of the day - talk about a clash of all the things!)
Being my first HP Lovecraft read - I'm sufficiently blown away. Not so much by the story itself - but by the visuals. The story follows a certain pleasant and familiar beat - is it madness spawned by a glimpse into something real and horrifying? OR was it hallucinations triggered by trauma, starvation, thirst, exhaustion? It doesn't really matter in the end. (His journey also reminded me of Roland in Drawing of the Three - I think for me, all things lead to the Dark Tower)
It felt a little Clive Barker-ish to me - which is to say - Barker must be a fan. And it made me think of some of our beloved SK stories: Survivor Type and The Raft and just a little bit of Mrs. Todd's Shortcut and The Mist and Langoliers) the feeling Lovecraft invoked in me was similar to those stories, and the grotesque imagery was what made me think of Barker - his scenery is always so sickening to me. The mention of Poe excited me - what it must have been like to exist in those days - when Poe was so relatively recent. I have to say - I liked it very much. Leaves me wanting more. I understand they hype of Lovecraft now.
Oh - Atlantis! It also made me think of the legend of Atlantis for some reason - maybe a discovery of Atlantis gone awry - that's what it felt like.
Thanks again for the new author in my life. Someone told me not to read Lovecraft because I'm such a chicken. That wasn't so bad. I'll be back for more.
Y'all have a great day!
I wouldn’t really say relatively recent, I suppose he would’ve been less than 100 years dead at the time this was written, but he was still in his grave for a long time. Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Taking a different path than GNTLGNT , when he posted "the maestro of dark atmosphere missed the mark on this one..." As a reader of this story, I took it as a prequel, introduction to the Cthulhu Mythos- the sea dragon( still in development). Parts of this story can also be found within The Call of Cthulhu-- the volcanic upheavals. If I remember correctly, is there also mention of a suicide death from a window? Could that be the death of the narrator from Dragon? Just some thoughts.........
This was my first experience with Lovecraft as well. I thought it was pretty good. Some of the language was overly flowery to me...in a kill the adverbs kind of way. But I enjoyed the story. I felt it was a result of sunstroke/fever dreams. But it is a horror story so...
Also interesting to think of it as Spidey suggested with her thoughts about it being an introduction of sorts to later works.
Also interesting to think of it as Spidey suggested with her thoughts about it being an introduction of sorts to later works.
I have to say I can see GNTLGNT ’s criticisms quite clearly. Despite it’s short length, the story has this long buildup only to give a short paragraph on Giant Fish Man, very disappointing for a creature that caused him to go mad. The obelisk itself is quite interesting though, I like the wording of the descriptions regarding the carvings of the other fish people. There’s lots of room for added story though, the creature could’ve done more than merely approach and bow at the obelisk, and it could’ve been described more. Not Lovecraft at his beast for sure, but this was one of his earliest published works as I had said.
....I grok what you say about the obelisk-that was the sweetmeat of the tale.....
Yeah, but for a guy so known for his terrible monsters and madness inducing elder beings, he can’t care to really give much life to one of his firsts. Even if a lot of his creature descriptions are vague due to the characters mental state, they do the job quite well. I think a good example of the creature being vaguely described while still being able to conjure its unholy presence is in his story, The Unnamable.
Because of this, I see it more of a story of madness or drug addiction than about the Fish Man.
I liked the story but a little more Fish Man would have been good.
Regardless of how much presence the actual fish dude holds in the story, there’s some cool art of it on the interwebs.
Father of the creature from the black lagoon and grandfather of the fish dude from Shape of Water
Agree, would like to have seen Fish Man expanded.
The obelisk was clearly there to give us a foretaste of a fish man society, and to suggest the Fish Man the narrator encounters may be the last of its kind. And while I like how it “shows and doesn’t tell”, the subtext of the obelisk is a great way to bring a more visualistic storytelling style into writing, it would’ve been interesting to see the fish man interact with it more. My own suggestion would to either have the fish man weep or collapse at the obelisk, either allowing the reader to sense intelligence and reminiscence from this being that is clearly the last of its race, or give a sense of finality as the narrator watches the last of an ancient species take its final shallow breaths.
i agree with your thoughts on language. It's so tedious and overworked IMO.